<p>I'm happy that UCLA is moving up because that's where I'm attending this fall but anyone have any clue why UVA went down. Any thoughts on Virginia being tied with UCLA? I personally think UCLA is a better university than UVA.</p>
<p>UVA focuses too much on their business schools and therefore can’t attract the same engineering school talent that VT does. Their football team has been in the dumps for the past few years, so that doesn’t help in attracting freshman either (Maybe?)</p>
<p>UVirginia>>UCLA, but both are ranked higher than they deserve.</p>
<p>UVa can’t carry UCLA’s jock as an overall university. It is weak in sciences, math econ, and engineering and has a limited coverage of the liberal arts lacking in foreign languages and studies. The main strengths are business and the soft liberal arts such as history, english and poli sci. Perfect for producing future lawyers and business people which it does well. OTOH the list of famous scientists produced by UVa is short for a selective school with such a high reputation.</p>
<p>Actually I have to agree with Barrons that UCLA is a much much better school than UVa in terms of academics. Like Barrons has stated UVa is weak in pretty much every department except perhaps business and a few other majors such as English. But even so, UCLA has a much better English program. The only thing UVa can top UCLA on is business because UCLA doesn’t have an undergraduate business school. Ironically when you compare graduate schools, UCLA (14) beats out UVa (15) in business. In other aspects, UCLA wins too. For sports UCLA is much better; location: UCLA. Even the professor are more renowned at UCLA.</p>
<p>UVA has higher selectivity though which is ultimately what makes a school good. Students and not its faculty or departments are what define a good school.</p>
<p>Basically, UCLA=UVA when compared overall, although UCLA is easily more selective. I personally think both are ranked a little high when BC is at 34. BC is 3% less selective than UCLA and 10% more selective than UVA. BC also has higher SAT ranges than both schools.</p>
<p>Ring<em>of</em>fire, I agree that UVa uses a slightly more holistic approach when selecting an incoming class, but that doesn’t always mean that UVa has better students. The students at UCLA are definitely not slackers when it comes to academics and extracurricular activities. When it comes down to pure selectivity UCLA is without a doubt so much more selective. More students apply to UCLA than any other university in the country.</p>
<p>“Students and not its faculty or departments are what define a good school.”</p>
<p>The above statement is somewhat true. Faculty and the strength of each school’s department has a lot to do with how good a school is because it is the faculty and rigor of its departments that in effect makes good students.</p>
<p>If students make the school, colleges are wasting lots of time and effort to hire and develop the best faculty and facilities. That might be big news to most university presidents too. Students are a part of the picture–and not the largest part.</p>
<p>YES!! UCLA is moving up. I truly believe UCLA is a better university than University of Virginia. UCLA is world renowned while Virginia is mostly only known by those on the east coast. Furthermore, UCLA has a great science program to prepare premed students.</p>
<p>GO BRUINS!</p>
<p>Irrespective of the arguments above, UCLA is world renowned due to their sports programs, not their academics.</p>
<p>^Not really. UCLA is known for being primarily a basketball school and one of the places where UCLA is most popular internationally is in eastern Asia, a place that isn’t known for being big fans of basketball. UCLA is internationally famous for its hard science and math programs, programs that many Asians care about.</p>
<p>The rest of the world couldn’t care less about American college sports. They don’t even care about the NFL, Superbowl, or the “World” Series. </p>
<p>NBA? Now that’s a different story.</p>
<p>UCLA is known for so much more than sports. Sure its athletic programs are excellent but so are its academic programs. UCLA has some of the best professors in the world producing a tremendous amount of research. Just take a look at UCLA graduate school rankings.</p>
<p>It is somewhat of a regional thing too. In the southeast, UVA is very highly regarded.<br>
UVA is the best public in the country in terms of undergraduate quality.</p>
<p>Not if they are engineering or science majors. I’d be happy to send you an internal UVa consulting report detailing their shortcomings in these areas.</p>
<p>I am well aware of their shortcomings in those areas. I think sometimes people forget that their is more to education other than engineering and science.</p>
<p>Absolutely, but really strong schools have strengths everywhere. Consider UCB or UCLA or Michigan or Illinois or Wisconsin and their sciences and engineering versus UVa. BLOWOUT. Even UVa knows that.</p>
<p>Yeah, UCLA is a very well rounded university. I mean who doesn’t want to go to UCLA. UCLA has everything anyone could want in a university. It located in LA, the weathers great, the students are very laid-back, great academics, and sports. Also, I think UCLA is considered a dream school in some rankings.</p>
<p>^yeah, dream school for the kids in, I think, the Princeton Review’s dream schools list.</p>
<p>My main drawback to UCLA, and a lot of schools in California and the Northeast, is that the urban areas in those locations are usually quite expensive and that’s the main reason I wouldn’t want to get there. I’m more of an Austin or Houston or Nashville guy.</p>